Building Star Trek

When "Star Trek" first aired in 1966, it expanded the viewers' imaginations about what was possible in their lifetimes. Today, many of the space-age technologies displayed on the show, like space shuttles, cell phones, and desktop computers, have already gone from science fiction to science fact. Other innovations, like warp drive, teleportation, and medical tricorders are actively in development. Join us as we celebrate the 50th Anniversary of "Star Trek" - a show that continues to inform, enrich, and inspire.

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Dorothy Fontana

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Dorothy Catherine Fontana is a writer and script editor who has the distinction of being one of the few people to have worked on Star Trek: The Original Series, as well as Star Trek: The Animated Series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Deep Space Nine is her favorite Star Trek spinoff. Fontana worked as a writer for a few television series before Star Trek, then briefly worked as Gene Roddenberry's secretary, before she became a writer on the show. The first episode she penned was "Charlie X", based on a premise by Roddenberry entitled "The Day Charlie Became God".

David Gerrold

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David Gerrold is a screenwriter and science fiction author who wrote episodes of original series and animated series and also worked as a story editor on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Gerrold wrote the scripts for the original series' "The Trouble with Tribbles" and its sequel, the animated series' "More Tribbles, More Troubles". The first of these was nominated for a Hugo Award in the category "Best Dramatic Presentation", which he shared with Joseph Pevney.

Nichelle Nichols

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Nichols' Star Trek character, Lieutenant Uhura, was the Communications Officer on the USS Enterprise. Nichols is one of the first African American female characters on American television not portrayed as a servant, which was groundbreaking in U.S. society at the time. In her role as Lieutenant Uhura, Nichols famously kissed Captain James T. Kirk. The episode is popularly cited as the first example of an interracial kiss on U.S. television. After the cancellation of Star Trek, Nichols volunteered her time in a special project with NASA to recruit minority and female personnel for the space agency. Always interested in space travel, Nichols flew aboard NASA's C-141 Astronomy Observatory, which analyzed the atmospheres of Mars and Saturn on an eight-hour, high-altitude mission.

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Flashback to the 1970s when the first Star Trek movie premiered and this Trekkie lunch box made its debut. In the National Museum of American History, you can view this and other old-school Star Trek merchandise.

Flashback to the 1970s when the first Star Trek movie premiered and this Trekkie lunch box made its debut. In the National Museum of American History, you can view this and other old-school Star Trek merchandise.